If you think that the HHS Secretary telling you that in order to help prevent spreading germs while suffering from a cold or flu, is to simply cough into your sleeve (GENIUS!) was bad enough, wait until you hear the next Government Safety 101 Recommendation.

That’s some of the helpful advice in a new instructional video from the Department of Homeland Security that was posted on the agency’s Web site just a month after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

“If you are caught out in the open and cannot conceal yourself or take cover, you might consider trying to overpower the shooter with whatever means are available,” says the narrator in the video, which shows an office worker pulling scissors out of a desk drawer.”

This ranks up there with Joe “Jobs is a Three Letter Word” Biden’s statement that the only way to reduce deficit spending is to spend more.

I always find it amazing (well, not really) that the government is always so gung-ho on such safety issues such as how use/walk with a knife or pair scissors correctly, but cannot be bothered to offer any support or advice on gun safety. However, seeing as how so many of them are such poor shots, you probably would not want their advice in the first place.

When I saw this, I could not help but think of this classic Monty Python skit:

NEW YORK — Former Mayor Ed Koch, the combative, acid-tongued politician who rescued the city from near-financial ruin during a three-term City Hall run in which he embodied New York chutzpah for the rest of the world, died Friday. He was 88.

Koch died at 2 a.m. at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital, spokesman George Arzt said. The funeral will be Monday at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan.

Koch was admitted to the hospital Monday with shortness of breath, and was moved to intensive care Thursday for closer monitoring of the fluid in his lungs and legs. He had been released two days earlier after being treated for water in his lungs and legs. He had initially been admitted on Jan. 19.

After leaving City Hall in January 1990, Koch battled assorted health problems and heart disease.

He was a true voice of sanity in a sea madness during the city’s dark days in the late 1970′s. One who was key in getting the city out of a financial and criminal tide wave of despair.

A true patriot, New Yorker to the bone, as well as being true bi-partisan, who cared less for political parties and more for his city.

But his faith was probably his most admirable trait, best expressed here, by having Daniel Pearl’s last words inscribed on his tonbstone.

David Paleologos, director of Suffolk University’s Research Center said he has pulled his pollsters out of Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia as all three look set to go to Romney.

“We’ve already painted those red,” Paleologos told Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly. “We’re not polling any of those states again. We’re focusing on the remaining states.”

It would seem following the debate debacle, the use of nothing more than Big Bird, calling Romney a liar and the already-forgotten Romney tax return fiasco as the fulcrum of a presidential campaign, people have had enough. And with the election drawing nigh, they are also being more honest with the pollsters.

Of other battleground states, Paleologos said Romney’s best chance was in Colorado, but he has a new poll out on Thursday in Nevada which could change things.

In Example 2,348,393 of “Why does this not surprise me?” (AKA “What have THEY done THIS time?”), comes word that there is quite a bit more to the ObamaPhone bribe then just a simple and obvious vote-buying gimmick in which to both entice potential Obama voters to the polls and also make complete and total idiots out of themselves on YouTube and other places. (Not that such people need all that much help with that, anyway)

A wireless company profiting from the so-called “Obama phone” giveaway program is run by a prominent Democratic donor whose wife has raised more than $1.5 million for the president since 2007.

And this company is a well known one. TracFone. One who has benefited greatly from the Lifeline program. A program that was initally set up in 1986 to those who needed assistance is securing a landline telephone. Inevitably, it was expanded (as all government programs do genetically) and as cell phones started taking over the phone market over the past 15 years, coverage for that was added in 2008. Which of course, led to near-exponential growth in the program. From $772 million in 2008 to now over $1.6 billion in 2012.

As for the funny money portion of all of this? Well…

One of the major providers of the free cell phones—3.8 million subscribers as of late 2011—is Miami-based TracFone Wireless, a company whose president and CEO, Frederick “F.J.” Pollak, has donated at least $156,500 to Democratic candidates and committees this cycle, including at least $50,000 to the Obama campaign.

Pollak’s wife, Abigail, is a campaign bundler for Obama who has raised more than $632,000 for the president this cycle, and more than $1.5 million since 2007. She has personally contributed more than $200,000 to Democratic candidates and committees since 2008.

In addition to the Pollak’s hosting a $40,000=a-plate fundraiser for the Obamas as well being White House guests of the Obamas on at least two occasions, their company also gets more than just a little free publicity from the Lifeline program.

TracFone, a direct financial beneficiary of the Lifeline program, receives $10 a month for each subscriber in the form of federal subsidies. The company can make an additional profit selling extra minutes to Lifeline subscribers who exceed their monthly allowance of 250 prepaid minutes.

Considering that a new donor scandal seems to be popping up every other day with the Obama campaign, it sure does makes one wonder how many of these TracFone prepaid cards ended up in the Obama 2012 campaign coffers.

I was maybe going to be post a long-overdue Friday Fun story today, but with the debate debacle and now the Sesame Street numbers coming out of the BLS today, it seems like this week’s events have pretty much written themselves for me.

At least two economists at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) have contributed to President Barack Obama’s campaign. Harley Frazis of Bethesda, MD, has contributed at least $2,000 to Obama and $9,000 to the Democratic National Committee over the last three election cycles

The 7.8% BLS number trotted out today is about as laughable as Roseanne winning the White House. But even less believable.

Following last night’s lackluster performance in the first presidential debate and even more so, with the media and liberal pundits countrywide dumping on Obama for it, comes even more bad news. Or at least, potentially bad news.

It would appear, at least according to a few polls that have come out over the last 6-8 weeks, that Obama’s support in even such a staunch Democrat area as Cook County, IL is soft at best and vulnerable at worst.

In other words, Illinois could potentially be a state that is actually in play for the GOP.

A new poll of Illinois’ 10th Congressional District, which includes parts of Cook County, however, suggests the August poll might not be such an aberration. The poll, from WeAskAmerica, finds Obama with just a 2 point lead over Romney, 47-45 in the suburban district. Obama won the district in 2008 by 23 points.

This follows an earlier poll that showed Obama with only at 12 point lead in Cook County itself. Which is a pretty low number, all things considered.

More to the point is the methodology and populace of this district:

I should note that the sample in the poll is evenly split between GOP and Dem voters. That may be a bit generous to the GOP, but even this can’t explain the collapse in Obama’s numbers here. A drop of more than 20 points one month out from the election is damning for Obama. Of course, the poll also deliberately oversampled women. They make up around 65% of the poll’s universe. Given the purported advantage Obama has with women voters, his margin in this poll should be considerably higher.

As with all polling, it is but a snapshot and most polls should be looked at as trend-spotters and only relied upon to show such trends in three and six month increments. Not, as so many in the media do, a “consensus” or “mandate” from one poll, that is generally way oversampled with Democrats. However, since we are closing in on Election Day, these things can lay some foundations in a lesser period of time. Especially with debates, and more intense campaigning if the offing over the last six or so weeks before the actual election.

It also fits the narrative that I have been espousing on other sites, that this election most likely will not even be close.